It has been said that the inner workings of a woman's mind is truly an enigma, and I tend to agree. At any given moment, women's hopes, dreams, silent sufferings, inner battles, and hidden desires can play a role in how they live their lives and do the things they do. In addition to these aspects of the complicated condition of being a woman, becoming a mother can completely change a woman's point of view on many things, as it happened for me. Through the author's use of setting, symbolism, and dynamic characters, the allegorical nature of some literary stories provides insight into the plight of women, which may be interpreted differently by different people. I myself, as a woman and mother, can empathize with the imaginary but apparently realistic "round" female characters in the stories The Shawl, A Jury of Her Peers, The Worn Way and Two Kinds, while a woman who is not a mother, or a man may not develop the same kind of empathy. In The Shawl, Rosa is driven by the undeniable force that is maternal love and attempts to hide Magda for as long as possible, to protect her daughter from danger. Even though Rosa is aware that she will suffer an inevitable sad fate, as the story says “Rosa knew that Magda would die very soon” (267), she continues to try to protect her little girl in the shawl. The shawl is symbolic of the enveloping quality of a mother's love and how the lack of it can have tragic consequences. The descriptive details of the setting, along with established character traits, such as Magda's silent suffering from the lice infestation, or the way the characters learn to quench their hunger by "drinking the taste of a finger in their mouth" ( 267) make the story it's heartbreaking to imagine having to go through such a horrible experience...... middle of paper ...... I didn't think she was a good player, but in my mind I was encouraging her to do the he got better when I saw that maybe he was relaxing. His point of view was different from mine, similar to the difference in point of view between Jing Mei and her mother. If I had read these stories before becoming a mother, I probably would have interpreted the character's plight differently. My heart may not have sunk into my chest like it did when I read how Rosa had to watch her daughter die in such a horrific way, or how she related to Phoenix's struggle. What different people get from these stories may depend on their existing views on life in general, they may not relate to or form the same kind of empathy that I had for the characters in the story. Overall I'm grateful, I think being a woman and a mother helps me have a better understanding of stories like these.